Frollo's alternative ending
by Hermelinda
Summary: All is in the title. Frollo-book based. One-shot, in progress, I don't know...But I've decided to try to continue what was in first juste an one-shot. Let's see. What if Frollo was deciding to save Esmeralda from the gallows ?
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer : Claude Frollo, Esmeralda and Quasimodo are characters created and owning to Victor Hugo, I don't own them. This little writing is made for entertainment. I'm sorry if there are mistakes, I'm French and my translation can be not very good. It's from Frollo's point of view after the Porte-Rouge scene. All comments, positive or negative, are good to take.;)

I was insane. There was no other explanation. I could not believe any more in a spell, the magic, the charms of Satan, the challenge posed by God. I could not believe in it any more. I would have given up all, very rejected with far, for his only presence, for only one glance, only one smile. I would have given up all, the Paradise, this life that I had so carefully set up, with my brother, my son, the Church, alchemy, science, each thing. Was it possible to lose any reason, any self-control at this point?

Leaned with one of the pillars of the towers of the cathedral, I contemplated in front of me this staircase where I had seen the Egyptian woman to walk, one evening of the moon, this evening when I had believed her died, where I had believed myself to die, where all seemed to have taken end, in an Apocalypse leading me to the end of the world, with the Last Judgement. It still seemed to me to see her white and unreal silhouette dance there, last illusion of one phantasmagoric delirious.

I pressed behind my back my hand against the pillar, seeking a freshness, a break in my ignited spirit, able to return my thoughts more lucid and less tormented. But it was in vain, really in vain: I still saw her eyes, vaguely brilliant in the black, and I still felt her body pressed against me, when I had tried to tear off from her a proof of love, whether it is platonic or carnal. And Quasimodo had prevented me, had stopped me, protecting this girl who seemed to have from now on as much influence on him than me and on me.

My eyes were closed, my eyelids trying to hide me the bloody spectacle which could have taken place. Me, taking by the force the dagger in the hands of the gipsy, assassinating my own son; leaving the weapon in my hand, I would then have turned to the girl who would not have had any more any defense, and which would have had then, inevitably, to submit herself to me, to the priest, the apostate, the assassin. And what I would have done then, in front of the dead eyes of Quasimodo, in the secrecy of the tower of Notre-Dame, in the shade of all the glances, rejecting the chains imprisoning me since years, pushing back my conscience, my faith in God, giving up all, and letting the Egyptian woman be my perdition, my Hell, my love.

By imagining this scene - simply by evoking it - I felt burn in me a rage and a desire new, dissatisfied, which could only burst. And at the same time, my heart seemed to me to tear.

I let myself slip to the stone ground, trying to return to a pretence of calm. The truth was that despite everything my hatred, all my anger, all my desire, all this side sinks of the human one which had succeeded in cutting through a path until me, it still resided in me a human part, which seemed to protect me from the irremediable, from perdition, from the eternal damnation. I could have killed Quasimodo; I could have raped the Egyptian woman; but I had not done it. I could it…  
So why? Both were at my mercy.

The truth, Lord, was that I had not been able it, simply.

I raised the head, supported against the column, looking without seeing them the clouds and the stars which strewed the obscure sky. I lowered the eyes on my hands: they did not tremble. And I was however terrified by myself.

"I could not." I murmured.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter One : Delirium

How long had I thus spent in my cell, turning like a caged lion, trying to understand what was happening to me? If only I had not realized she was still alive ...  
Because after that day and the night that had seemed like the end of the world - the end of my world, because without her, everything was destroyed, and nothing more sense - I felt myself almost able to repeat my life. I thought I could overcome this; I thought I could become again the person I was before, free of the omnipresent temptation that God would back to him. Because I could not believe that the gypsy was fated to the Devil, Satan, despite its nature as a temptress, she was innocent. The one we wanted to hang that day was innocence itself, I would have preferred that it was me who would be hanged. God would have enough compassion to take her in his heaven, because His forgiveness is infinite. As for me ... How much of Hells were described by Dante ?  
I could go back in front, I could live again without her, the angel tempter, I could have. But Quasimodo had rescued and had given him asylum in Notre Dame, this house was mine, and I had to live with the gypsy day and night now. I didn't count the night of fever anymore - and I do not expect anymore of these silent hours, day and night, where I prayed, seeking in vain in the absence of God's words a solution to this situation, wondering if He sent her to me, forgiving me or rather to give me a new test again. God never answered me - not more to me than to the others. What could I do, miserable? I was abandoned by God; Quasimodo regarded me with suspicion; and when I walked in the street, the crowd retreated before me, suspecting a sin - suspecting me more than the usual occasioned my unpopularity disparagingly, as if they had noticed that I could not bear the sight of the hanging of the Egyptian.  
And I sometimes heard her singing.  
Sometimes his little goat bleated at the door of my cave.  
I heard the day she ordered Quasimodo to fetch Phoebus.  
Phoebus, the sun against the black soul and winter I was.  
What luck could I have, me, miserable priest, even if I was archdeacon?

Yet I could not help wandering in the mazes and towers of Notre Dame. In the shadow, I followed the footsteps of the Egyptian when Quasimodo was not there. Several times, she looked around her, perhaps sensing my presence dark against her.  
My hands were clenched on the cold walls, while I could not help but devour the eye. I never tried - I could not. Were this by respect and love towards it? By refusal to become similar to a gangster, an assassin and a rapist? By last illusion of the ounce of humanity and reason which remained in me? By fear of what I could then do? However, I liquefied myself internally. Illusions, deliriums passed in my spirit and my dreams, returning to torture to me during the long sleepless nights, where I sailed between the daydream and the sleep, but I did not try anything any more.  
I could not. It was not that I did not want: I could not. Was there enough subtlety in my language to express this negligible nuance? It was like saying: I do not want to be for hanging. Wasn't this already terrible enough? And to say then: I cannot. I cannot be for hanging. There was not an effort of will and courage in these words, in this attitude? A last sign of human decency?  
And yet, if I had wanted it ? When Quasimodo was renouncing to take care of her, harassed with tiredness, how much time I was lengthened to me against the adjacent wall with the small room of the gipsy, sticking to me to the cold stone, posing my hand against this icy surface, hoping to perceive at the end of one moment his heat, this heat human which was refused to me, which refused with me? And how much time had I taken care thus, before giving up me with the sleep which did not come whereas in these cases? And when I awoke, Quasimodo was at my sides, fixing me of its eye, trying to include/understand in the obscure advance of its thought my reasoning, my reason to act. Why wouldn't I have the right to love and to hope? Was this my fault if she danced, if she laughed, if she were the life even? Was this my fault if I could not love her? If extremes were always attracted by themselves ? If she couldn't be mine ?  
Oh, how much time had I dreamed waked up, leaving Paris and the need for being a priest, whom I took along the Egyptian woman with me, taking along Quasimodo, taking along Jehan, even Phoebus, yes, Phoebus, if she wanted it, taking along them in a terrestrial Eden, where no dogma nor fate would not have reigned on us, where we could have lived eternally happy? How much time did I request God to send a sign to me?

The sign, if it arrived, was not that until I waited. I knew that justice was not going to be long in taking again the gipsy in her asylum. I would have liked never to have given idea to Charmolue to hang the Egyptian woman. But the true sign was when I met Gringoire. I am unaware of which appearance had given me these long days of loneliness, of dreams and of are delirious. Always it was that it moved back when it saw me. This movement returned me laid out in its connection less than I was it already.  
"How are you, master Pierre?" I of an icy tone asked.  
"Oh well, my Master," made it after one moment, "the unit is good."  
He was occupied observing the stones of Notre-Dame, the frescos, the statues, the staircases, like if, following the example of Charmolue, he had wanted to discover the secrecies of alchemy. So that it was me which begun again conversation.  
"You thus do not have any concern, master Pierre?"  
He was diverted his observations with regret, looking at me only unwillingly.  
"Well, Master, not. I am always philosophical wandering; the light of day and a little bread are enough for me, like my trade and my art, when I have for it the inspiration - or the need."  
"You see that! Doesn't it sometimes happen to you to forget those which crossed your life and would somewhat need your assistance?"  
He had a thrown into a panic air, finally fixing me with more attention.  
"Master, I did not see you since many weeks, and you appear sicker to me than the Claudette friend, that I see every day and with which one predicted since years his death the next day, but if I had met you earlier, I would have helped you, no doubt! I owe you much of things."  
I carried the hand to my face, retaining a sigh.  
"Gringoire, I do not speak to you about me, but about a certain woman whom you already knew."  
He posted a perplexed, reflective air. "Master, I am unaware of what you want to speak."  
"Would you have already forgotten that with which you owe the life, poor wretch?"  
Fire returned to urge on my veins. Very pure that was its marriage with the gipsy, he was at least married for him with her. It was more than I would never have. My fury had to be seen on my face, because he answered precipitately: "you want to speak about small Esmeralda and its goat? But they were hung, Master, it is already a long time?"

The reasoning finally seemed to be done in its slow spirit, though it did not miss intelligence.  
"I think we gave her sanctuary in Notre-Dame, no? He well, she is then in safety. Why do you thus think still of her, master?"  
I considered it in silence, the dark glance. If he had understood, or guessed, why didn't he say the facts opposite, instead of posting this mocking air? Probably I would have struck it if I had not controlled myself. Because if I controlled myself from now on when I slipped the night into the small bedroom of the Egyptian woman, satisfying me to look at it sleeping in the absence of Quasimodo, it seemed that this desire and this violence in me were indeed to be ready to emerge, some share, on any occasion. The officer had chance not to have still crossed my road, at the time of the mazes and long walks that I asserted myself, far from the angel tempter.  
"Don't you have thus any desire to save the one with who you owe the life, master Pierre?"  
Gringoire scraped the head, raising the shoulders.  
"Eh well, Master, for all to say to you, here a long time that I did not think any more of it or with the small goat. And it is in sure place with Notre-Dame - if her fate worries you so much, why not go to see her?"  
I emulously resisted to slap him - as if he did not know, had not guessed, only one share of my feelings towards the Egyptian woman, and their total incompatibility with this statute which was mine. I was a priest, he was a converted gangster; useless to seek to calculate who was likely the most to be able to approach legally and morally speaking this girl.  
I was to be terribly pale when I turned again to him, because it had a movement of retreat. Perhaps I would have smiled if I had had the heart of it; because if it were frightened by me, I was terrified by myself, by what I did.  
"thus do not have you any desire of gratitude. Will know nevertheless, master Pierre, that justice will include it in Notre-Dame. The right of asylum will be suspended in three days."  
I examined his reaction. He remained amazed, not knowing what to say. Or did he make fun about it really? At the bottom of me, I however requested that it is not the case.  
"you say nothing?" I of a cold tone made.  
"My faith," He murmured of an obstructed air, "I suppose that I must well something with this small dancer, who always took care of the husband who I was not really for her."  
My interest for him regained in power, with these words. I fixed it, indicator which it had again lost in a daydream.  
"And the small goat, moreover," He continued, "one should not hang the innocent animals. "  
I did not understand the interest that it could carry to the goat. Weren't an human being - and especially this Egyptian woman - more important? From which did this sudden love come from the goats?  
"I listen to you, Gringoire. Would you have an idea to save it?"  
"If we ask thanks to the king?"  
I had a bitter laughter. Even if I were in the good graces of Louis XI, probably that the Tourangeau accomplice would have another thing to make to listen to me to beg for a witch. And that would destroy my reputation.  
"Let us not hope for anything the king. Why not make you pass for the girl?"  
He appeared thoughtful, then horrified.  
"you want to say- to exchange my clothing, to let me hang in her place?"  
"Don't you owe her that?  
"Eh well, here is an idea which would never have come to me to mind" He said by scraping the head. "I prefer to declare it pregnant."  
I have a dash of rage which I retained only with large-sorrow. Again, he moved back in front of me.  
"What do you want to say by there? You would know something of it?"  
"I, master? Not, nothing the whole" He stammered.  
"you would have been rather abandoned of God for…"  
"I did not touch her, I already said it to you! She is pure as at the first day, Master! I swear it on my poor mother and my poor father!  
I breathed more easily, trying to control me a minimum.  
"you must take his place, Gringoire, unless you do not have another idea…"  
He thought a few moments, moments which appeared an eternity to me. Each second and each minute which passed brought closer the Egyptian woman to her inescapable death. Lastly, his face is cleared up.  
"The gangsters - she is their queen, they would do anything for it! They can be raised against Notre-Dame, yes, the capacity of the people against that of the king! And me, I could help her to escape during this diversion, to save her!"  
I considered him of a cold eye.  
"Perhaps you will leave there your life, master Pierre, are you of it are conscious?"  
"Eh well, I suppose…"  
He raised the shoulders, scraped the head, and was turned over towards the sculptures of the cathedral.  
"I suppose that I… She made so good for me…And perhaps as after all, death is not that moreover well would like an adventure… yes, the philosopher who I am owes her that…"  
But I heard already only more than one ear: I had been diverted, turning over towards my canonic home. If this rescue succeeded, I had to prepare me. To prepare the last things necessary; and to try to give up all the remainder.


End file.
